Planes

I had never been on a plane until I was 18 years old, and leaving home for the first time. I couldn't get far enough away from upstate New York, and was on my way to California with only a couple of bags and a few hundred dollars. I was terrified of flying, and clutched my stuffed monkey, falling asleep after taking the drowsy kind of Dramamine. I didn't like the noises, the claustrophobic feeling, the knowledge that a machine was holding me thousands of feet in the air, and could drop me at any time.

I was happy to get off the plane, once we landed in San Diego. I was never happy to get back on one. During the five years I lived in California, I flew home to New York twice a year to visit my family. Every time, I had to complete a checklist beforehand:
-must book a window seat
-must be sitting away from the wing
-must have ample supply of drowsy Dramamine
-must have Monkey
-must have calming CDs with my discman (in the vein of Sigur Ros)

I didn't care that I was hugging a stuffed monkey in public at the age of 21...22...I needed something to keep me from having a claustrophobic panic attack or a we're-going-to-crash freak out.

When I flew home on my one way ticket, thinking that I was moving back to my hometown only as a jumping off point to a new life with the boy that made me feel that I would never love anyone else again, I welcomed the end of my twice a year aerial travel. But when my dream of a perfect love collapsed and imploded shortly after my return, I felt stuck. Life clunked. Home didn't feel like home anymore.
A new romance lightened the weight upon me. He was nothing like anyone I had ever been with. He was the exact opposite of my last love in every way, and I welcomed the change. As much as it was refreshing and new, it was different than what I was used to. It wasn't movie screen romantic. It wasn't spontaneous. Most of the time, we just watched TV on his couch. I wanted more. I wanted something to make me feel like I was alive again, and that my hometown hadn't smothered me to death.

It was Spring. I had the day off, and he drove to my apartment to pick me up. We sat in his car, parked up the street from my building, at a loss of what to do. I looked up at the trees lining the street, blocking out the sky. I remembered how every time I flew home and looked down on Albany as we were landing, I was surprised at how bushy it was. Like broccoli. Green and lush in an overcrowded way that was nothing like airy, spaced out Los Angeles.
That day, I felt like someone was holding a pillow over my face. Like I was being held down, forced into a corner. Like someone heavy was sitting on my chest. I was restless and antsy, moving around in the passenger seat, wanting to escape. I told him I wanted to get out of town, but it was getting late and dark would come soon. We couldn't drive out to Thatcher Park, I didn't want to go to the movies and screw the mall! There was nothing we could do, nothing we could think of.
We sat there for what seemed like hours. I became more and more agitated as time passed, and I wanted him to come up with something. I wanted an adventure. I wanted air and movement. I needed to get out, out of my skin. He started the car, rolled down the windows. He said that where we were going was a surprise. I was intrigued. I was curious. What was he cooking up in that head of his? I could never really read him, couldn't figure him out. I'm not sure if I smiled. I didn't know what to expect.
We pulled up to Stuyvesant Plaza, one the many (many) strip malls in our town, and parked the car in front of Starbucks. “Calm down, this isn't where we're going. We're getting coffee first.” He knew me so well. How did he know me so well? Could he see inside my head? We got coffee and he paid for mine, as usual. It was dark when we got back in the car.
The drive wasn't long, and when he turned down a familiar road, I realized where we were. I saw tiny lights in the sky, and heard the whoosh of the air and exhaust. Was this really where we were going? He parked in front of a chain link fence, facing the runway. The planes landed and took off in front of us, like they were putting on a play. “This was the closest thing I could think of to escaping,” he said, and my heart danced. It was something I had never even thought of.
That night, the airport was exciting. That night, the planes were beautiful. Not scary, not bad. The one thing I was terrified of was staring me in the face, but this time I embraced it. The red and green and blue lights swooping through the air breathed into me; my lungs opened and my restlessness disappeared. Sitting in his car, I was free.
He held my hand over the console-something he had never done before. It felt like love. Was it love? The Foo Fighters song “Aurora” drifted out of the speakers and into my ears for the first time, and became the song that made me think of him and that night, always. It became the song that made me think of flying. It was the song that made me love to fly.